Page 80 of The Facade

I scratched the side of my head as if trying to remember any other interesting details about my night. “I had a hard time taking out my pink contacts, and it took a few minutes to wash off the makeup…”

Nash puckered his lips into a frown. “You didn’t meet up with Mack?” he asked, his blue eyes probing. “You didn’t meet up with Mack to have that fling you said you wanted?”

Until this point, I’d been doing what my mom and dad called “lying by omission.” I’d told him about the other things I’d done last night and just left out the part he was wanting to know about.

But in that moment, to protect something that was new and special and something I didn’t want interference from my brothers, I made the split-second decision to lie.

To outright lie to my brother about my love life.

Because for the first time in my life, I might actually have a love life worth protecting.

So with a shrug, I said, “I thought about what you said on my ride home and realized you were right and probably knew more about guys than I did. So I just went to bed.”

Lie.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “And now that it’s morning and I’ve had some time to think about it, I’m glad I didn’t let my emotions get the better of me because that would be so weird to kiss Mack.”

Another big fat lie. Kissing Mack was pretty much the best feeling in the world.

“It could have definitely complicated things,” Nash said, his gaze measuring me like he was still suspicious that I hadn’t just gone to bed last night like I was pretending.

His lie-detecting radar was working just as it should because I was totally lying through my teeth.

But since I was now committed to this new narrative, I said, “Yeah, and we’re becoming such good friends it would be dumb to possibly mess it up.”

The jury was still out on whether that statement would end up being a truth or a lie. But I was telling myself that risking our friendship for the possibility of something more was worth it.

“How was the rest of the movie?” I asked, deciding to change the subject before he could ask me any more questions.

“It was good,” he said, adjusting his position in the chair. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have nightmares until I can forget about the guy climbing through the mirror, but that’s the price you pay for a fully-lived Halloween.”

“Eh, I’ll let you be the one with the nightmares,” I said. Then remembering back to the few times I’d seen him and Elyse dance, I asked, “Did you convince Elyse to cuddle up to you during the movie?”

“No.” His expression fell.

“What?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m like terrified of her.”

“You’re afraid of Elyse?” My eyebrows knitted together. “But she’s literally the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

“I know…” He leaned back and ran a hand through his tousled blond hair. “It’s like, she’s so perfect and amazing that I can’t help but think that she’s too out of my league to ever be interested in me.”

Out of Nash’s league?

Was he being serious right now?

I knew he sometimes felt like the “second choice” brother—comparing himself to Carter who had always been a little more popular with the girls since he’d hit puberty a year and a half before Nash. But Nash had filled out more in the past year and had even reached his goal of being six-foot just last month. So while Carter had his whole half-Latino, blue-eyed, charming vibe going for him that Ava couldn’t get enough of, that didn’t mean her twin had the same taste.

Even if Elyse did have the same taste as Ava—if there was some sort of genetic component to whom identical twins were attracted to—you really couldn’t get much closer to that particular look than Nash, since my brothers still did look a lot alike. Only a few shades of skin tone and three inches in height kept people from confusing them as twins themselves.

Aside from looks, there was so much more to him than that. Even despite all his meddling and teasing ways, he was crazy talented and had such a fun-loving side to him that you couldn’t help but love the guy.

And if last night with Mack was any testament to how amazing something could turn out if you just took the risk and put yourself out there, I figured my brother deserved to have something work out like that for him.

So I told him, “I think you’re overthinking this too much. I mean, Elyse is pretty great and one of my best friends, but you’re pretty awesome, too. I don’t see why she wouldn’t like you. Or in the least, want to go on a date.”

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